Tuesday, 19 May 2015

TweetThere are those
who consider that achieving independence for Wales is really not the most
important thing right now; that the immediate problems such as jobs, housing,
and education are much more important to people in their daily lives.So why do I keep banging on about the
constitution?

My answer
depends partly on whether one sees independence as an end in itself or as just a
means to an end, and partly on the importance of process as well as
outcomes.Those two factors together
help to explain why I’ve sometimes referred to myself as an accidental
nationalist.

There are
certainly many nationalists who see independence as an end in itself, which
simply involves transferring power from one set of institutions and politicians
to another set of institutions and politicians, based on a different set of
territorial boundaries.The basic
processes remain the same; power is exercised at the centre by an elected
government.Cardiff is Westminster writ
small.

It’s a
conventional and unimaginative approach, which simply replicates the same
resistance and obstacles to change in a different place.And if that is all that there is to
independence, then I’d find it impossible to argue that it should be any sort
of priority over the bread-and-butter issues which I referred to above.

But some of us
believe that the Westminster model is an irreparably broken system; it’s
unamenable to reform, it works for the interests of the few rather than the
many – economically, socially, and geographically – and is a barrier to the
sort of change which would fully address those bread-and-butter issues.It’s also an inherent barrier to
participation rather than a means of facilitating it.It’s part of a world order which sees big as
being good, and power as theirs to exercise.In that context, independence isn’t just about institutions; it’s about
establishing a process which can facilitate more fundamental change.

My purpose in
advocating independence is not simply to replace one bunch of politicians with
another, but to change the way things work much more fundamentally; to put
power back in the hands of the people where it belongs and for people to be
more directly involved in the process of running their society.Self-government means more than transferring
power from one institution to another; it’s about ‘self’ government in a much
wider sense for people and communities.

And that’s
where my second emphasis comes into play.Process is important.The sort of
independence that I want to see won’t come about by electing politicians to
make laws; it will come about because people are convinced that it’s the right
thing for their future.It will be
achieved by people rather than done to them.

One of the most
exhilarating aspects of the Scottish campaign leading up to September’s
referendum was the increasing level of direct involvement of people who had
never engaged in political activity before, largely outside the party political
system.Whilst I’m delighted with the
subsequent electoral success of the SNP, I know that I’m not alone in worrying
about the danger that all that new energy ends up being channelled back into a
more conventional type of party-based politics for the long term, rather than
simply using conventional politics as a short term instrument.

In Wales, we
can only dream about the sort of movement which built up so much steam in
Scotland last year – seeing the Welsh equivalent being put back in the box is
the least of our worries.And my underlying
point in a series of recent posts has been that telling people that even the
replacement of one institution with another – let alone changing the nature of
the institution – is impossible for the foreseeable future is a remarkably
ineffective way of laying the groundwork for that much wider programme of
change.

The process of
getting from where we are to where we want to be is not the property of any
politician or party; it belongs to all of us.The mere election of people to an institution is an abdication, rather
than an exercise, of people power.The
job of any politician who really wants meaningful change is to lead and inspire
the people to demand it, not just to seek election to office which they can use
to impose rather more limited change by passing laws.

As we saw in
Scotland last year, a real campaign for independence is as much about process
as outcome – actually, maybe even more so.That point needs to be better understood in Wales.